And if I didn't own an iPhone, I would definitely own the Pre. Kudos to HP - I look forward to their tablet.

Indeed, I have no intention of leaving the iOS eco system anytime soon (too many useful additions to my iPhone) but the webOS always was a close competitor to me, considering the amount of cleverness and user interface polishing that went into the development of the OS. Some aspects are even superior to the iOS experience, the notifications for example are ingenious on webOS (there is still a lot of work to do for Apple).

After all, I never understood why many Apple fans disliked this product with such a passion, the build quality may not be top notch but the software is still incredibly refined compared to Android (even with Google's backing Android 2.2 lacks the attention to detail and thoughtfulness of its competitors).

You have a nice OS running on a nice hardware, but still lacking of a comprehensive, integrated platform to deliver content ! It is all about content !! Namely books, applications, games, music, movies...

Apple has a successful platform to deliver that: iTunes.
What is HP/Palm integrated alternative ?

I didn't address infrastructure and content-- but I think that's doable! HP/Palm should be able to a better job of that than Android or MWMW-- they can focus on fewer unique devices with known minimum configurations -- rather than trying to satisfy everybody, badly.

If they can gain numbers, I think it would be more attractive to developers to concentrate on 1 or 2 HP/Palm OS versions and 1 or 2 iOS versions rather than the ever increasing fragmentation of Android-- who knows what MS will do or when?

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"Swift generally gets you to the right way much quicker." - auxio -

"The perfect [birth]day -- A little playtime, a good poop, and a long nap." - Tomato Greeting Cards -

The good part of all of this: More competition for Apple (to keep them on their toes) and no more soup for Microsoft!

No serious attempt of competition with Apple here. Android is probably the only one with that in mind and they are a long way off.

Feels like they want to compete with everyone but Apple. The collective strategy seems to be go after the low end phones because they will not get enough software to go head-to-head with the iPhone. Essentially they are going after the feature phone market.

The good part of all of this: More competition for Apple (to keep them on their toes) and no more soup for Microsoft!

i agree. as pointed out above, the integration of hardware and software has great potential. it'll come down to the execution and ecosystem.

just a guess, but my inkling as to why many apple fans seemed to dislike palm/the pre so much was the role of rubenstein. that and the piggy-backing onto iTunes. and perhaps they did see it's potential as a serious rival to the iPhone?

i do see this as potentially good competition for apple. of course, they always push themselves, but perhaps that is as much from the lack of competition in the areas that they focus on - user experience, UI design and industrial design.

WebOS is an awesome OS, and I think that if HP can really dedicate time and resources they can be successful. If WinMo dies like I think it will with version 7 there will be a good 10-12% of the smartphone market for palm to grab. It won't be as big as android or iOS, but it might kill off Nokia's Symbian as well.

In the end I think we will have Blackberry OS, Android, iOS and WebOS. Since blackberry is business only, consumer segment can accomodate 3 OSs I think.

Never count Microsoft out, they have huge advantages with Office, Exchange, etc that they can potentially leverage to help Windows Phone 7 to succeed. Also don't forget Nokia is still big outside the US.

However, I am struggling to see how WebOS can succeed. Apple had early mover advantage (no one had a comparable product for at least 18 months). Android has the advantage of multiple hardware partners. WebOS has neither of these advantages.

""Wherefore" means why (or what), not where. It was a reference to [his] name or person. In other words, "Why you Romeo?" Why did she love HIM - a member of the hostile clan."

wherefore |ˈ(h)we(ə)rˌfôr| archaic
interrogative adverb
for what reason : she took an ill turn, but wherefore I cannot say.
relative adverb & conjunction
as a result of which : [as conj. ] truly he cared for me, wherefore I title him with all respect.
PHRASES
whys and wherefores see why .

HP is now going on record with the media in announcing that it will exclusively use Palm's webOS to power its future smartphones, dumping Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 entirely. Dell has announced similar plans, although it is using Android rather than WP7 or building its own mobile platform.

What the fuck, Dilger? Dell was announced as one of WP7's launch partners quite recently, and back in April specs about their Windows flagship, the Lightning, were leaked and were all over the internet soon after. I mean, I know you'll take any opportunity to make Apple look like they're in a more advantageous situation, but this is just patently false.

It failed because no one cared. Unless they come up with a compelling differentiator, no one will care 6 months from now either. If iPhone shows up on Verizon and/or T-mobile, very few people will care about any of the 50 different "current" Android handsets. Having said that, RIM will be dead in a year so there is probably room for WebOS.

If they are able to avoid the mistake of releasing to many products, they would have a shot at seriously rip into the mass consumer confusion that is Android. By the end of this next round of MS Exchange upgrades, RIM will be dead. Nearly all companies that plan on having employees a year from now are moving to support Exchange Activesync which is good for nearly everyone in the world except RIM. Blackberry's suck, they just managed to do a good job of getting themselves entrenched into most enterprise IT shops.

As devices like iPads and yet-to-be-named Android tablets gain in popularity, IT will have to support them. Fortunately for all of us, that means all of our phones will be supported to. I believe blackberries may be supported to, but they will no longer have a reason to be. People will gleefully toss the worthless hunks of plastic right into the river.

HP was one of the anchors on the race to the bottom in PCs, and only recently tried to turn it around. It will be interesting to see what HP shows up to the mobile game.

You should be asking yourself why no one cared. Palm did not have the money to compete in ads with Apple and needed Sprint to pay for ads. They were also a company a year from either being sold or going bankrupt and no one is going to buy a product from a company in that situation.

Apple, Google & MS are the three most powerful companies and Palm simply didn't have the power to compete. They didn't have Palm stores or brand recognition like Apple. The cards UI on the WebOS is better than iOS. For multitasking Apple seemed to plop it on top of the existing UI. Web OS still has the best implementation of a unified PNS which iOS still does not have. Meanwhile Android, a lesser OS, can't even manage to get pinch and zoom to be smooth.

HP is a company that's been around long time; much longer than Apple. Building a quality product needs more expensive parts which HP could not use in the "race to the bottom" PC industry. They have the chance to create a premium product like Apple.

As for RIM dying, you're wrong. RIM has patented encryption servers which are perfect for businesses looking for top flight security and those servers allow for better battery life than any competing phone. I don't know why you'd want for RIM to go away because Apple doesn't. Apple wants as many companies in this business as possible so there isn't another MS situation. This why it is rumored that Apple would buy Palm just to keep them alive.

Indeed, I have no intention of leaving the iOS eco system anytime soon (too many useful additions to my iPhone) but the webOS always was a close competitor to me, considering the amount of cleverness and user interface polishing that went into the development of the OS. Some aspects are even superior to the iOS experience, the notifications for example are ingenious on webOS (there is still a lot of work to do for Apple).

After all, I never understood why many Apple fans disliked this product with such a passion, the build quality may not be top notch but the software is still incredibly refined compared to Android (even with Google's backing Android 2.2 lacks the attention to detail and thoughtfulness of its competitors).

WebOS is lacking in apps, some major 3rd parties are there, like EA (Tiger Woods golf and Tetris are good), but most of the apps in the store are paid apps, even if only a $1.

Hopefully the new PDK will change that.

I had the choice of going with Android when I upgraded my phone in April, but I still prefer the polish of WebOS, even over iOS, the notifications are vastly superior and the multitasking is very good, although the OS could use tweaks here and there (luckily the homebrew community is very active, and Palm/HP is supportive of it). The HW isn't the real problem (it's the 3GS with 512 MB RAM and 16 GB flash for the Pre Plus), besides battery life.

I also like Palm's synergy syncing; Facebook, Google, Yahoo, AOL, Live, I have 6 e-mail accounts, and it also plugged into the respective calendars. Even does automatic backups to Palm's servers. The Touchstone is terrific, just can't believe there's no OBEX support for Bluetooth.

Palm failed when the announced the phone months before it was ready (see WinMob7, all the buzz is gone), and it launched on Sprint initially. Didn't help that Palm's and Verizon's ads were awful.

If they would have just showed someone using a few cards, some notification alerts, and the gesture bar, they probably would've been golden.

I think MS will be a much bigger player than many suspect. They already are on 16% of the smartphone OSes as of a report earlier this year. I think it will WebOS that will have the hardest time getting a foorhold.

True that... but likely only on corporate market.

WP7 has potential to hit hard RIM and HP... if they manage to fulfil promises regarding quality Exchange integration as well as SharePoint, CRM and mobile Office. Not paying for BlackBerry Server alone (but still having good Enterprise level features) would be reason good enough for many corporate users to make a switch.

But MS will have to iron initial shortcomings (copy&paste, multitasking) to compete on consumer market with iPhone and Androids... so for that, they will have to wait for WP7.X (or will it be Windows Phone 8)? Still, if they manage to penetrate corporate market, that could easily give them beach head for spreading through consumer as well.

Can't say it is universal, but our bosses are already drooling over WP7 and are planning to get them ASAP. We are actively using CRM and it's customisation through QOS-IT, and if MS does implement that functionality into WP7, that is already killer feature for us. And from us, it will easily spread to number of our customers... a scenario easily possible for other IT conultants ant their clients.

no way HP is going to release its PalmPad in 2010. scaling up the WebOS "under new management" into a pad will take almost
a year, plus some months for the final hardware polish. we'll see it next spring - along with iPad2.

haven't people noticed the repeated delays in all these "iPad killers" coming to market? maybe it is not as easy as the media hype part is.

no way HP is going to release its PalmPad in 2010. scaling up the WebOS "under new management" into a pad will take almost
a year, plus some months for the final hardware polish. we'll see it next spring - along with iPad2.

haven't people noticed the repeated delays in all these "iPad killers" coming to market? maybe it is not as easy as the media hype part is.

Only time will tell, until then I'll still enjoy utilizing my iPad 64, S10-3t, and various other 'touch screen' computing devices/peripherals.

"The lack of interest demonstrated by various competing hardware makers in flocking to a single platform has confounded pundits who have predicted that smartphones would quickly settle into a PC model with one monoculture software platform."

It took some time to resolve into a PC monoculture. There were bit players in the 80s like atari, amiga, os/2, apple.

You still don't get it, do you ...... Apple competes with itself (by always trying to outdo themselves) more than outside competition. Was Apple "motivated" by the existing competition when they developed iPod? ... No! Everybody and their dog thought they were crazy to introduce a music device costing 100s of dollars.

Was Apple "motivated" by the competition when they developed iPhone? ...No! Again, the prevailing "wisdom" of the day said they were crazy to compete with the existing phone makers .... "they don't understand the phone market" they said.

This nonsense that you continue to post about "keeping them on their toes" is useless drivel. Apple motivates themselves ..... always have ... always will. Steve has said time and time again (but you still can't/won't hear him) ... Apple desires to make the best products they can, products that they would like to own themselves ... end of story. Time for you to put your thinking cap on .... please.

And amen! It's getting to the point where I want to scream when I see comments that claim Apple somehow "needs" competition. Apples only competition is Apple.

I think MS will be a much bigger player than many suspect. They already are on 16% of the smartphone OSes as of a report earlier this year. I think it will WebOS that will have the hardest time getting a foorhold.

They used to have close to 100% at one point, and their share has been falling ever since they got competition in the smartphone OS business. Windows Mobile is dead, and WP7 will mean a full reboot of microsofts smartphone business, but it's not here yet, and it remains to be seen if it can make a dent in ios/android/blackberry marketshare. The way things are looking right now is that end of 2010 ms will release a platform with a 2008 feature set, in a market that is twice a competitive as it was 2 years back. I wish them all the luck, and they will probably make some inroads, at least in the corporate business, but I most definitely wouldn't bet the farm on WP7 becoming a serious competitor to any of the 3 'big guys' out there right now (not counting symbian or meego since they both have insignificant market share in the smartphone business)

You should be asking yourself why no one cared. Palm did not have the money to compete in ads with Apple and needed Sprint to pay for ads. They were also a company a year from either being sold or going bankrupt and no one is going to buy a product from a company in that situation.

Palm didn't need to buy ads. Every single news outlet in the Western World was giving them oodles of free advertising hyping up the iPhone Killer. You could't turn on a TV without being told how good the Pre supposedly was.

WebOS will allow them to potentially become a boutique brand like Apple because they make the hardware and software.

I agree, it gives them the potential.

Quote:

As of today I think WebOS is more aesthetically pleasing than iOS and also has a few features I'd like on the iOS.

Ah, but heres the rub. Apple isn't successful because of features (or because of lack of features). Apple is successful because they focus, relentlessly, on the overall user experience first. Everything else, including features, is second. They aren't afraid to wait until they get something to the level they think is "right" - witness copy and paste. All the pissing and moaning, gloom and doom, ridicule - in the end it mattered not. When Apple did finally release it, it was elegant, well thought out and well implemented. More importantly, it will stand the test of time.

It will be interesting to see if HP can follow the same path - to see if it can execute the same discipline in choosing the overall experience over the sirens call (for tech companies, anyway) to just glob on feature after feature after feature -- even in the face of withering criticism from the blogosphere and tech press.

This is why Android is only really doing well in the US where the iPhone being on only one carrier opens up opportunity for people who want to use other carriers. Compared to the iPhone, the Android ecosystem is total chaos. Geeks and techies are non-plussed by the complexity, but they are in the minority. The rest of the world couldn't care less about "open". The more important question is "does this do something useful for me" and Apple excels at answering that question - and often pretty emphatically.

If HP can figure that out and break with tradition of the typical tech company, they have a shot at competing with Apple. Otherwise they will just be another one of many in a noisy end of the pool that's unappealing to most people.

This nonsense that you continue to post about "keeping them on their toes" is useless drivel. Apple motivates themselves ..... always have ... always will. Steve has said time and time again (but you still can't/won't hear him) ... Apple desires to make the best products they can, products that they would like to own themselves ... end of story.

Thank you! I too get sick of these ridiculous "Apple needs the competition" claims. It's more like the rest of industry needs Apple to prod them on or we'd just have more ineffectual Windows tablets and phones!

I didn't address infrastructure and content-- but I think that's doable! HP/Palm should be able to a better job of that than Android or MWMW--

Why on earth would you believe that? Google has YouTube. Microsoft already has the 360 video download service. HP has nothing.

Sony has a better chance of competing with Apple than HP.

Quote:

they can focus on fewer unique devices with known minimum configurations -- rather than trying to satisfy everybody, badly.

If they can gain numbers, I think it would be more attractive to developers to concentrate on 1 or 2 HP/Palm OS versions and 1 or 2 iOS versions rather than the ever increasing fragmentation of Android-- who knows what MS will do or when?

MS has a huge developer base of C# developers and Android fragmentation is overblown just like the iPhone 4 issues.

As a Pre owner, I really like the webOS part of the phone. The hardware would be good if it weren't for the constant quality issues... many people are on their 2nd (such as myself), 3rd, and even up to 6th phone... QC is obviously an issue.

I suspect that if the iPhone came to Sprint, many Pre owners would abandon their phones for iPhones, but some really believe in the platform.

I think HP can bring good mobile hardware to the table... just look at what HTC and Motorola and Apple are doing and duplicate that and put webOS 2.0 on it and see what the market does...

And Windows Phone 7 looks interesting but probably not going to see Zune software on the Mac, so that certainly leaves most of us out...

That's a good post.

Personally, whilst I've not seen that much of WebOS, what I have seen I've quite liked. However, think the problem other tablets are going to start seeing is lack of apps. Apple have got ahead of the curve there and as a consumer, why would you buy device with little available software when you can have one with lots? It then becomes a virtuous circle for Apple because developers will go after the bigger market (just as they sadly do for Windows when compared with Macs).

It failed because no one cared. Unless they come up with a compelling differentiator, no one will care 6 months from now either. If iPhone shows up on Verizon and/or T-mobile, very few people will care about any of the 50 different "current" Android handsets. Having said that, RIM will be dead in a year so there is probably room for WebOS.

If they are able to avoid the mistake of releasing to many products, they would have a shot at seriously rip into the mass consumer confusion that is Android. By the end of this next round of MS Exchange upgrades, RIM will be dead. Nearly all companies that plan on having employees a year from now are moving to support Exchange Activesync which is good for nearly everyone in the world except RIM. Blackberry's suck, they just managed to do a good job of getting themselves entrenched into most enterprise IT shops.

As devices like iPads and yet-to-be-named Android tablets gain in popularity, IT will have to support them. Fortunately for all of us, that means all of our phones will be supported to. I believe blackberries may be supported to, but they will no longer have a reason to be. People will gleefully toss the worthless hunks of plastic right into the river.

HP was one of the anchors on the race to the bottom in PCs, and only recently tried to turn it around. It will be interesting to see what HP shows up to the mobile game.

Palm didn't need to buy ads. Every single news outlet in the Western World was giving them oodles of free advertising hyping up the iPhone Killer. You could't turn on a TV without being told how good the Pre supposedly was.

There's the problem though, the Pre was virtually unheard of outside the US. Android manufacturers and Apple have a massive international market to tap. HP of course has access to this global market, more so than Palm could ever have dreamed of.

But as another poster mentioned, there's quite a bit of work to do leading up to the next generation of shipping WebOS products, etc.

The way things are looking right now is that end of 2010 ms will release a platform with a 2008 feature set, in a market that is twice a competitive as it was 2 years back. I wish them all the luck, and they will probably make some inroads, at least in the corporate business, but I most definitely wouldn't bet the farm on WP7 becoming a serious competitor to any of the 3 'big guys' out there right now (not counting symbian or meego since they both have insignificant market share in the smartphone business)

People said that about the 1st iPhone too. It didnt have x-feature so it <insert adjective>, y-phone had this feature z-years ago, et cetera. Hopefully MSs WP& team has learned from the iPhone and are perfecting the core features before expanding to new territory. So far, everything Ive seen looks promising for corporate interest.

As for the Big 3, when it comes to the business world I dont see Androids lack of control or security being an interest to many large companies, but I can see BB OS, WP7 and iOS being the leaders on this front.

Some general questions to anyone:
1) How much marketshare does Windows Mobil still control in the business world?
2) How much does Android control?

Quote:

Originally Posted by nvidia2008

But as another poster mentioned, there's quite a bit of work to do leading up to the next generation of shipping WebOS products, etc.

Hopefully Palm started working on a tablet version of WebOS by the time the Apple Tablet rumours were in full swing. If not then, hopefully they started after seeing the iPad. With this market segment being a complete failure for desktop OSes for that past decade Palm should have seen Apples iPad as a great opportunity for them, the way Google saw the iPhone in 2007 and began to redesign it to accommodate a new era in consumer friendly smartphones.

Hopefully...

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"